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New RSF Special Initiative: Decision Making and Human Behavior in Context

In 2018, the Russell Sage Foundation embarked on a year-long discussion among its board of trustees and experts across the social sciences to address the rapid expansion in the use of behavioral insights in public policy and in research in disciplines outside of economics. The result is the foundation’s new special initiative onDecision Making and Human Behavior in Context, which officially launched in 2019.

The new initiative will support innovative research from multiple methodological perspectives intended to further our understanding of decision-making processes and human behavior in the contexts of work, race, ethnicity, immigration, and social, political, and economic inequality in the United States. RSF encourages applications by scholars in psychology, political science, sociology, and other social science fields who are pursuing questions consistent with the aims of the foundation.

Under the new initiative, RSF has a particular interest in research on the role that biases, incentives, or emotions play in decision making and behavior across multiple contexts; how socio-economically consequential habits are formed and changed; and the extent to which contexts and networks affect decisions and behavior.

This initiative is meant to complement RSF’s long-standing Behavioral Economics program. RSF was an early force in the development of the field of behavioral economics, launching its BE program in 1986.

The first deadline letter of inquiry (LOI) for the new initiative will be May 23, 2019 at 2pm Eastern Time.